Episode 32 - Maria James

0:14 Welcome back to Crime Besties. We are here for another episode

0:18 of our podcast, so thanks for joining us again.

0:21 Oh. Yeah, and your voice is somewhat

0:22 back, but I know, correct? So we've actually had a week off

0:27 recording, so our last recording was two weeks ago.

0:30 And I think in that recording I was like, oh, I'm just sort of

0:32 getting over being sick. Turns out I'm still coughing and

0:37 still a bit congested, but I don't think I sound quite as

0:40 sexy as I did. Last time, unfortunately, not

0:43 quite as sexy. Yeah, yeah.

0:45 But I mean. It's OK.

0:47 So again, apologies if you know, coughing and all that sort of

0:51 happens in the background. I'll do my best to to get

0:53 through. But yeah, anyway, how have you

0:55 been? Yeah, good, good, good.

0:58 Oh gosh, school gone back this week.

1:00 Crazy, which is, I mean, I've loved these school holidays.

1:04 We've had a great time but I'm ready for routine so.

1:06 I'm the same. So.

1:08 So I was saying to one of my colleagues at work, I'm like,

1:10 I'm really ready to get back into routine, but my God, it's a

1:13 rude shock. Oh, because everything goes back

1:15 in this school week. So you're back at school, you're

1:17 making lunch boxes every day. All the sporting activities are

1:20 back. Everything.

1:21 It's just like, it's you go from nothing, literally everything in

1:25 the space of a day. Yeah.

1:26 Well, literally I went back two days before the kids kind of

1:28 into work as well. Like, it's so I feel like I've

1:31 well leaned into these holidays. I felt and I was not prepared.

1:35 OK. I literally last night was like,

1:37 I finished doing dinner with all all those sorts of things and

1:39 I'm like, I'm sitting on the couch and I sat down and went,

1:44 oh, no. I could literally fall asleep

1:45 because I've done 3 days of work in a row already.

1:51 What? Yeah, I was like, exhausted.

1:53 But my kids, after their first day back, they were pretty done

1:56 too. So my kids were absolutely

1:57 tanked last night. Yeah.

1:59 I mean, it's a good thing, I think, you know, let's get them

2:01 back into their routines and stuff.

2:04 But yeah, I'm, I'm sort of glad that it's two days they're at

2:07 school and then we've got the weekend.

2:08 Although did you notice we've got an 8:00 AM basketball game

2:12 for the young ones on? Saturdays.

2:14 Oh, and all the way where it is because that's the my furthest

2:17 travel. Yeah.

2:19 Oh, and 8:00 AM it. Feels.

2:21 Worse, they are the worst. I can't wait until they go up to

2:24 under 10s cause at least then you're less likely to get an

2:26 8:00 AM game. Well, literally, 'cause my older

2:28 ones, the under 10s, you know, in the, in that group chat,

2:31 we've got the rest of the, the season got announced and it got

2:34 put into the group chat like, yeah, everyone, we're no, no 88

2:37 AM games ever again. Yeah, like because then they'd

2:40 be able to under twelves and then that's not gonna happen.

2:42 It's not even a thing. So we're like, you know, you

2:44 never have to do them under the 8:00 AM game game again.

2:46 Yeah. And all these people going, this

2:47 is amazing. And I'm like sitting here going,

2:50 my younger one has them still, like and I've got them.

2:52 We've got quite a few this season.

2:54 Yes, unfortunately I feel like. I feel like we've gotten them

2:57 pretty much more often than not. Yeah, and if it's not 8:00 AM,

3:00 it's 8840. You know.

3:02 Yeah. Yeah, so annoying.

3:04 Anyway, they love it so. Oh.

3:06 They do. And I am.

3:07 Look, I'm really looking forward to getting back to watching the

3:10 sports I do. I love watching their sports in

3:11 the mornings. I really love it.

3:13 But me too. It's just they're getting up and

3:14 getting there. Yeah, Yeah.

3:15 I mean, at least there aren't lunch boxes.

3:18 Yes, that's true. On Saturdays, yeah.

3:20 On the weekends, yeah, that's true.

3:22 Anything worse than doing lunch boxes well.

3:24 See, I feel like I've got one kid who I love making a lunch

3:27 box for because he loves for anything.

3:30 And he also, yeah, food. And he, he, he always comes up

3:33 with like these creative ideas. Yes.

3:35 One of our friends actually sent me a TikTok the other day of

3:39 these lunchbox ideas. And one of the things that she

3:41 sent was a rice paper roll. And Oliver loves a rice paper

3:46 roll. Love a rice.

3:46 But it had chicken Caesar salad in it.

3:49 Oh, yeah. So it had croutons.

3:51 Yeah, roast chicken, Yes, the lettuce, Parmesan, Caesar salad

3:56 dressing. And you wrap that all up.

3:57 Yeah. And Oliver's like, oh, mum, you

3:58 have to make them for me. I'm like, oh.

4:00 Actually over this, I watched a video of like a woman where she

4:02 made a Caesar salad, but then she like cut it all up like

4:05 really, really small and made it into a wrap.

4:08 And I'm like, oh, that's a really good idea.

4:10 I mean, it's still the same flavours.

4:11 You don't necessarily need it being like full and intact.

4:15 Like, you know, it's like, oh. That makes it much, I don't

4:17 know, easier sandwich to make for sure.

4:19 Yes, Yeah, down for that, yeah. So I've got some good ideas.

4:23 But then my younger one, sort of similar to your kids.

4:26 Yes, he's, he literally eats the same thing every single day.

4:32 So I mean, well, his lunch box is probably easier to put

4:35 together because I don't have to.

4:36 Think. Think.

4:37 Yeah, you know, it's, it's boring.

4:42 It is and it's, it's that, but the issue with the strict lunch

4:45 box is with, with somebody who's more flexible, it's like, oh,

4:48 I'm out of this. Oh well, I'll put this in

4:50 instead, you know. But with them it's.

4:52 You have to have the things on hand.

4:54 Afterwards I missed the first day of doing them 'cause I

4:57 didn't have to do them yesterday was I haven't put the yoghurts

5:00 and your cults and stuff in. OK, So they'll be mad with me,

5:06 Yeah. I hear you.

5:07 Yeah. Anyway, out of routine.

5:08 We'll get back into it. Next week's a new week.

5:11 Yeah. One of our fans actually from

5:15 one of my friends from work, Joe, she was saying she's like,

5:18 let's just write off January. January's been a bit of AI.

5:23 Don't know things have happened. It hasn't been the best month.

5:26 Like, you know, she's had stuff going on.

5:28 Lots of people have. Yeah, I've been sick.

5:30 We've had lots of and Ollie was sick as well.

5:33 I don't know. It just wasn't the best start to

5:35 2025. She's like, that's fine, 'cause

5:37 the year doesn't actually start until Feb, so.

5:40 So truly, it doesn't. Start yeah, Feb So she's like

5:43 don't worry about it. We've got a new fresh start on

5:45 your Feb. So we're recording this on the

5:46 31st of January, so from tomorrow.

5:50 Yeah, it's a new year. It's a new year, we're all good.

5:53 It's all fresh. We're going to start afresh and

5:54 things are going to be good. We're going to be getting those

5:56 groceries that we need and we're going to be on top of

5:59 everything. Oh.

6:00 Joe, I'm down for that, yeah. So here's for that one, Joe.

6:02 It makes me feel a whole lot better at.

6:05 All exactly. No, yeah, I'm definitely up for

6:07 that whole fresh start. Yeah, because January, it's

6:09 just, I think especially because I'm off the whole time too, it

6:12 just means it's just this limbo land of a whole other.

6:15 It's a whole other land that I live in in that time.

6:17 And then it's yeah, reality we. Find it, I find it so funny.

6:21 So like, I work in the healthcare industry, but a lot

6:25 of what we do relies on patients, I guess, wanting to do

6:32 certain testing, right? And it's not necessarily urgent

6:35 in most cases. So we find for US, January is

6:39 dead. The second school goes back, we

6:42 are like straight back into it. And that is exactly what

6:45 happened yesterday. Yeah.

6:47 So yesterday morning we were so quiet.

6:50 So it's first day back at school for Victorians at the very

6:52 least. Yes, yesterday morning we were

6:55 really quiet. Then after everyone's done the

6:58 drop off and getting back home, we were so busy.

7:01 The phones just went nuts with people following things up and

7:04 you know, all that sort. Of it's like it's yeah, reality

7:07 starts to kicking in and it's like you move into that next

7:09 realm of the year is here. Yeah, because I find even though

7:11 I work through the school holidays, yeah, I still find I

7:15 put everything off because the kids are around and it's just

7:18 harder to do things when they're there.

7:20 And I'm like, now, once they go back to school, then I'll do

7:22 this or whatever. Like that was like even just

7:24 recently searching for this, I found like, you know, when we're

7:27 in routine and you think then when you're, when I'm working

7:30 and I've got the kids doing all this stuff, you think you've got

7:32 less time to do stuff. But I actually find I find it

7:35 much easier to research because I have my a lot of times I know

7:38 how my week works. Whereas when it was free for all

7:40 and the kids are around more, I didn't, I found it really hard

7:43 to find time to research where it should have been.

7:45 Like, I've got all the time in the world to research.

7:46 Like should be doing this easy. Yeah.

7:48 No, I'm really I'm looking forward to next week's research

7:50 because I feel like it'll just happen far more.

7:53 Well, I hope. So stay tuned to the end of the

7:55 episode, we'll let you know what we're researching, but my

7:57 goodness, it's going to be a big one.

7:58 Oh, yes, that's true. Yeah.

8:00 Yeah. Oh my gosh.

8:02 But yeah, we're ready. We're raring to go.

8:04 Ready for Feb? Yeah, yeah.

8:06 The start, the official start of the year.

8:09 All right. So today we are talking about

8:13 Maria Teresa James. So this is a really famous case

8:18 in Victoria especially. Yeah, Maria lived in Thornbury.

8:22 So that was back in the day, that was a really sort of

8:25 working class suburb. And I mean today it's certainly

8:30 not like that at all. It's it's a very sort of hip and

8:34 up and coming type of suburb. Lots of like very trendy people,

8:38 trendy place. Yeah.

8:39 Living and around in and around Thornbury.

8:43 Maria owned a bookshop at 736 High Street in Thornbury and

8:50 well, she not only did she work there, she actually lived out

8:54 the back of the second hand book shop that she owned.

8:57 So yeah, she lived quite an eclectic life.

9:03 Like, I can't imagine, you know, back in the day, I know like our

9:07 local milk bar owner, they lived, Yeah, the milk Bar like

9:11 it was just a quite common to have these kinds of businesses

9:13 where people. I think in closer into the city

9:16 even more so, like around the like Thornbury area, it was, you

9:18 know, you either you live above the shop that you run or, you

9:20 know, at the back kind of thing. So yeah, I mean, these days they

9:23 probably have gutted those and turned them into bigger houses

9:26 or bigger shops. But you know, back then it was,

9:28 you know, you did all, all in one.

9:29 Yeah. Yeah.

9:30 I mean, almost like working from home.

9:32 Oh, suck. But you know, very convenient

9:35 because I mean, I guess you could sit out the back and, you

9:37 know, in her own house and have her doing her washing and have a

9:40 cup of tea or whatever. And then if she heard the bell

9:41 ring of the front door with the with the bookshop, I'm on work

9:44 just time now and I pop out the front.

9:46 So yeah, worked for her very well.

9:48 I think so. Maria was a single mum by this

9:50 stage and she had two sons. So we're going to talk about

9:54 this. We were discussing this this

9:56 morning and timeline for this case is really complex because

10:03 as the timeline progresses, we then in the future find out

10:07 things that happened. And so we're going to do our

10:09 very best to kind of explain things in blocks, I guess is the

10:13 the best way to do it. So Maria James was found dead on

10:19 the on Tuesday the 17th of June in 1980 in her bedroom by her

10:25 ex-husband John James. Yeah, the way this all came

10:29 about is such a fascinating story.

10:34 And I think we probably also need to just really quickly pop

10:37 in that this was actually our favorite detective Ronidal's

10:41 first ever homicide case. I think he was like 25 years old

10:46 or something. Such a young, so, so many photos

10:50 and video clips and stuff of like, and I keep trying to spot

10:52 him but you can't because it's like he used to see him as he

10:55 who he is now. And I'm like, oh gosh, they're

10:57 trying to find the young Ronidal's in there.

10:59 Like, yeah, and they're all wearing their like almost bell

11:01 bottom sort of suits or like, and then.

11:03 Yes, it's all. It's all very, very cute.

11:07 Yeah. So this was actually.

11:09 So Ron, as a homicide detective, solved 99% of the cases that he

11:15 worked. He had a.

11:16 Total of 320 homicide cases and solved 99% of them.

11:23 Incorrect. Like that is unheard of in terms

11:26 of a track record. But to this day, the first case,

11:30 this Maria James case that he worked on has not been solved.

11:34 And I know you, you watch interviews with Ron.

11:38 We've seen Ron talk about this case live.

11:41 It's always something he gets asked about because it is an

11:44 anomaly in his career. Yeah.

11:46 But he also says that when when you hear him interviewed about

11:49 this case, he often talks about the fact that he was learning,

11:54 he didn't know and there were so many errors and mistakes that

11:57 happened. And we will absolutely get into

11:59 all of that as we go through. But you know, he said, he learnt

12:03 so much from doing. This as well.

12:05 He made changes, I think as he progressed through his career,

12:08 obviously of like realizing, you know, after the fact of like,

12:11 yeah, that's that was wrong of us to have done that, you know,

12:14 back in that case. So I think he's, he, he brought

12:17 so much to the team in that sense that, you know, being the

12:20 young, young one on the, on the, the group that he brought

12:22 through some real change along the way.

12:25 Yeah. To make sure these cases were

12:26 getting solved. Yeah.

12:27 But I mean, not to, I think it was lack of knowledge of in

12:30 general policing wasn't anyone's direct fault.

12:33 I think they were thought they were doing the right thing.

12:35 Absolutely. It wasn't someone, you know.

12:36 Well, we'll get into the fact that there might have been other

12:38 things at play. But yeah, in general sense, the

12:41 police officers were doing what was normal procedure of the era.

12:46 Yes. But yeah, then obviously they've

12:48 learnt from those things and have changed them up as as

12:51 they've gone along. Yeah.

12:52 Absolutely. So on the morning of the 17th or

12:56 actually we probably should start the day before or should

13:01 we? I don't know.

13:01 I actually don't know what it's that.

13:02 Let's start on the morning of. Yeah, on the morning of the of

13:07 Tuesday, the 17th of June in 1980, Maria takes her.

13:12 So she's got two sons named Adam and Mark.

13:16 Adam is 11 years of age and he has a disability.

13:20 He has cerebral palsy and Tourette's syndrome.

13:23 Yeah. And Mark is aged 13, so Adam's

13:26 older brother. And they go to different

13:28 schools. So Adam goes to a special

13:30 development school and Mark goes to the local Catholic.

13:34 I think he was in Grade 6 at the time.

13:36 Yeah, he was. Oh, he's got to be in year 7

13:38 because he was like 13, wasn't he?

13:39 Yeah, I feel like he. Yeah, maybe.

13:41 Maybe. Anyway, he went to the local

13:42 Catholic school. School.

13:44 Yeah. And so this more on this

13:47 particular morning, Maria's made them scrambled eggs, which

13:50 apparently during the winter was their absolute favorite.

13:53 Go to everyday scrambled eggs on toast for Brekie.

13:56 Totally get that get. That.

13:59 Love it and she so mark goes off to school on his own.

14:04 He walks off and goes on his merry way and Maria takes Adam

14:10 to the bus stop where his special development school will

14:13 pick up all the kids you know on their way and off and take them

14:16 off to the. Should we note in terms of Adam,

14:18 like I think people, people could very wrongly assume that

14:22 Adam's disabilities meant that he was intellectually affected

14:27 and he wasn't. He's, you know, he, he was very,

14:31 he's quite an intelligent, you know, man now boy at the time

14:36 even he can be hard to understand because with, with

14:39 the various disabilities he's, he's impacted with.

14:42 But in terms of his intelligence, he was, you know,

14:45 able, able to articulate himself.

14:46 Very absolutely, yeah. And he's got his own thoughts,

14:49 feelings, opinions. And that he can.

14:51 Express absolutely. And you know, there's.

14:53 Yeah, definitely. So I.

14:54 Think and he's got a lot of very valid things to say, which again

14:57 we will, we will get to that. Yeah, that's a good to.

15:00 It could be very easily dismissed that with with things

15:03 like cerebral palsy and Tourette's that he could be just

15:06 not have a lot to say or you know, you know.

15:09 Or that or that what he has to contribute might not be right

15:12 or. Or valid potentially.

15:14 Yeah, that definitely will come into this.

15:17 Yeah, absolutely. On the way home from dropping

15:20 Adam at his bus stop, Maria stops to buy a cake from a cake

15:24 shop and heads back home. So as we were saying, she had a

15:29 business in the front of her, in the front of her house.

15:32 Apparently there was something like 22,000 books or something

15:36 in that place. And you see, have you seen

15:38 photos of what it looks like inside the bookshop?

15:40 It was patched chockers floor to ceiling.

15:43 There was not. Even the windows, the front just

15:46 was, you know, books all in the. Stacked with books, Yeah.

15:49 There was she. She.

15:49 Bought and sold books like so yeah, second hand bookshop but.

15:53 Yeah. Amazing.

15:54 Incredible. Like, yeah.

15:55 And you think some of those books could have been there

15:58 forever? Yeah.

15:59 And never been touched or seen by anyone because imagine trying

16:02 to, you know, shuffle. Shuffle because.

16:04 That fire, yeah, yeah, I'm sure she had a system.

16:06 She must have. Yeah, she must have, because.

16:08 I think she was a very intelligent woman.

16:09 Yeah, I know she was. She was very well respected in

16:12 the community and she sounded like she had a bit of a sparky

16:17 personality and she had lots of friends.

16:21 And I mean, I guess if you weren't a business in the High

16:23 Street and there's people walking past all the time, you

16:25 would you'd become you're sort of part of that scene on you and

16:28 everyone kind of knows you and there.

16:30 Was certainly regular business coming through there like it

16:32 was, you know, there was multiple people coming in a day.

16:34 It wasn't like it sat there without customers.

16:36 Yeah, I feel like in this day and age, maybe that would be the

16:39 case. But yeah, it sounds like it was

16:41 a thriving business. It was certainly enough to keep

16:44 per afloat. And the two boys.

16:46 Yeah, her her ex-husband John was definitely involved in the

16:50 kids lives and they had a very amicable relationship.

16:54 They they always talked about things to do with the boys and

16:57 and they'd catch up for coffees every now and then.

17:00 I think Maria and John felt like they could call one another.

17:04 Yeah, you know, for anything that they needed.

17:06 So, you know, they still had a a relationship in which, you know,

17:11 they had the boys best interests at heart.

17:12 And absolutely. Yeah.

17:14 And that all worked for them. Yeah.

17:18 So Maria came home. She's got this cake.

17:23 And at about 11:30. Well, even just before that, she

17:27 was seen with two real estate agents on Mansfield St.

17:31 Mr. Surinotis and Mr. Mazevsky. I don't know, say that.

17:39 Good on you, I reckon. Yeah, maybe.

17:41 Yeah. Yeah.

17:42 So 2 real estate agents she was seen on the street with as well.

17:44 Prior just having a having. A having a chat, yeah, yeah.

17:47 At 11:30 she phoned her ex-husband.

17:50 So he was what was he a town clerk or?

17:52 Something. Yeah.

17:53 He was a clerk, Yeah. Yeah.

17:54 And so she called him at work. Yeah.

17:56 And he wasn't there. His secretary took a message and

18:00 she said, Yep, I'll give go. He'll be back really soon.

18:03 I'll get him to give you a call back, which he did.

18:07 Yeah, he very promptly called her back because.

18:09 He's in the office 7 minutes, someone said.

18:11 It was like quite quite quick, the turn around.

18:14 Which is, you know, he's an ex-husband.

18:16 He could have just got to work and gone, you know?

18:17 Oh, yeah, whatever. But he's immediately called her

18:19 back. Yeah.

18:20 So I think that goes to show the type of, yeah, the relationship

18:23 they had for sure. Definitely respectful of one

18:25 another, yeah. Maria gave no indication to his

18:30 secretary. What the call might have been

18:32 about, but it certainly wasn't unusual for Maria to call him at

18:36 work if there was something that they needed to discuss as well.

18:38 So, yeah, you know, it was a run-of-the-mill type of type of

18:43 thing, Maria. So when John called, Maria

18:47 answered the phone and then not very like literally seconds into

18:51 the phone call, she says, oh, hang on.

18:54 And he, she's obviously has put the receiver down because we're

18:58 back in the day with corded phones attached to a wall or a,

19:01 you know, you're sort of hooked to a table or wherever the phone

19:05 might be. And John can hear in the

19:08 background that there's another voice, can't hear, can't make

19:12 out what they're saying, but he, he knows someone's obviously

19:15 come to the door. John listens, and he thinks he

19:18 can hear an argument or there's certainly terse words being

19:23 spoken. And then he says he hears a

19:25 startled Yelp. So not a scream, but a startled

19:30 Yelp and startled conversation. So this actually concerns him.

19:36 So he starts to like scream down the phone to kind of make Sloor

19:40 to. Like trying to get like you know

19:41 their hurt someone's attention like.

19:43 To be like, I'm on the phone, like, what's going on?

19:45 Come back, Maria. Like, are you OK?

19:47 Yeah. He hears another Yelp at this

19:51 point. Yeah.

19:51 And he's very, very concerned. So he goes.

19:57 Then he hears silence. Yeah.

19:58 Well, nothing. And I think that's almost

20:00 scarier than hearing noise at some point.

20:02 Yeah. Absolutely.

20:03 Yeah. Incredibly concerned, he leaves

20:06 work. He says to his secretary, I've

20:07 got to go and figure out what's going on here.

20:09 This just didn't seem right. And he gets to Maria's house and

20:14 place of work somewhere between 12:10 and 12:20 in the

20:18 afternoon. Now he goes to the front door of

20:23 the shop and it is locked, which is unusual because the open sign

20:27 is on the door. He then goes around the back to

20:32 enter the house, the house part of the building, the back door,

20:35 which is essentially like the house or.

20:37 Yeah, yeah. And that's also locked.

20:40 So he's like, oh, that's strange.

20:43 You can't hear anyone inside. But he's concerned enough that

20:47 he actually goes to a neighbour's house then to try

20:50 and ring Maria's phone again to see like, are you still home?

20:53 Is everything OK? Yeah, he goes to the neighbour.

20:55 Because again, we're in an era at the minute where there's no

20:58 mobile phones or anything like that.

21:00 He tries to ring, but he gets an engaged signal.

21:02 So he's like. It's clearly off the hook still

21:04 from his phone call. Exactly.

21:05 Yeah, No, he wants to. Put it back on, yeah.

21:07 I have to. I have to.

21:08 Oh, that's the other thing. Sorry.

21:10 As he's walking to the neighbour's house, he sees the

21:13 curtain move. Yes.

21:14 In the window. Yeah.

21:15 He sees the movement inside, so which is corroborated them by

21:19 someone else who comes to the front of the shop and to be as a

21:23 customer and tries to go in. And they also said they saw a

21:26 curtain move too. Yeah, yeah.

21:28 So that's incredibly concerning. Yeah.

21:31 So hearing nothing, seeing nothing.

21:33 Front and the back. He tried like between the two.

21:35 I think he tried almost four times on each.

21:38 Okay, so he's gone back and forth and back and forth, right?

21:41 Yeah, yeah. And then gone to have a look,

21:44 gone to see whether he can find a neighbor to use their phone.

21:46 Yes. Yeah, Okay, yeah.

21:48 So at this point he's obviously very concerned.

21:51 So he actually climbs in an open window and calls out to Maria,

21:55 like Maria, Maria, and he has no response.

21:57 So he starts to walk through the house and he gets to Maria's

22:02 bedroom, walks just inside, so her door is open.

22:06 He walks just inside and sees her body lying on the floor and

22:12 there's blood around her head. This bit gets me.

22:17 I mean #1 how horrific would that be?

22:20 God, to his credit, he doesn't do.

22:24 He doesn't touch her. I mean, I think he, I.

22:26 Think he was he could tell she was dead.

22:29 Yeah, there was a no. Yeah, she wasn't moving,

22:31 breathing. And I guess the shock of it too.

22:34 You would just go into action. I've got to get help, I think

22:37 was his, you know? Oh, my God, this.

22:39 This is not for me to, you know, I need someone else here like,

22:42 yeah. So she's lying face down on the

22:48 floor. Have you seen the crime scene

22:49 photos? Yeah.

22:51 Oh my gosh. It just looks like she's just

22:55 being discarded on the floor. Yeah, well, which is?

22:58 Pretty much. That's unfortunately that's

23:00 probably the best way to do describe it, I think.

23:03 It's just it's horrible. So I mean, you can, you can see

23:06 these photos online if that's something that you feel that you

23:09 would like to do. So hands are bound and there's

23:13 68 stab wounds to her body. 6868.

23:21 Horrific. It's frenzied.

23:26 It's, they're all close as well. They're like, you know, the,

23:30 the, in terms of the pool and splatter of blood.

23:33 It's not like it's everywhere. No, it's like they, you know,

23:36 the first couple of blows probably took her down and then

23:40 they've continued the perpetrator or perpetrators have

23:43 continued then. To keep, keep going because.

23:48 And he actually, when he first saw the body and he, he thought

23:52 that was like something spilt on her like dust of some sort, like

23:56 a powder or something. But then when he's sort of

23:58 taking it in properly, he's realized, Oh no, that's not

24:01 something on her shirt like that.

24:02 That's the stab marks, like where the knife's gone in.

24:06 Shirt, shirt. Yeah, yeah.

24:07 Oh, it's just horrible. So he immediately, he leaves

24:11 back through the bedroom door and calls 000 immediately at the

24:16 neighbour. Yeah.

24:16 With at the neighbour's house, yeah.

24:18 He then goes back to wait for the police at the he goes back

24:27 to the bookshop, to the front of the bookshop.

24:30 And as he goes there, the front door of the bookshop is now

24:34 open. Yes.

24:37 Now, in the time that John was making this Triple O call, a

24:43 woman driving down the street, driving down High Street,

24:47 witnessed a man running away from the bookshop covered in

24:52 blood, right? So she says that this man was

24:58 wearing a white shirt. Yeah, and blue jeans and blue

25:02 trousers Blue. Trousers, yeah.

25:04 So I don't know if that meant jeans or whether it was like

25:06 slacks. Yes.

25:08 I I actually don't know, no. Another witness saw a black

25:13 figure. So a man, a short stocky man

25:17 wearing black all black clothes, a black shirt and black pants,

25:20 standing in the doorway of the bookshop again around this time.

25:23 Yeah, because other people were coming to the front and buzzing

25:27 the shop. Wanting to get in and.

25:28 Trying to get in and have a look.

25:29 Yeah, yeah. So the police arrive, and I

25:38 mean, well, sorry, as as John comes back after making his

25:43 Triple O call, there is actually a a patron, somebody inside the

25:47 bookshop looking at her books like not knowing anything had

25:50 happened. No.

25:50 Yes. As well.

25:52 So so much has happened in this, like very short amount of.

25:55 Time we're looking at the triple O call came through at 1232 Yep.

25:59 So if we're saying he like John has arrived between 12:10 and

26:03 12:20, yeah and gone back and forth four times around trying

26:06 to get in, has eventually got in, you know, called from the

26:09 neighbours place, all these things fairly short timeline of

26:13 things going on. Yeah.

26:14 And but and then in the time frame of going to the next door

26:17 neighbour to call Triple O at 12:32 and then coming back to

26:21 the house and there's yeah. And there's some customer just

26:22 like in the front and obviously has gained access through the

26:25 front door of it being unlocked. Yeah, So what the police

26:28 actually think happened was when John entered the bedroom and

26:32 found Maria's body there, that the killer was actually hiding

26:35 behind the door. Which doesn't so as magic.

26:37 Oh, my God, I couldn't. You couldn't sleep.

26:39 No, I mean, you couldn't sleep anywhere.

26:41 No. After what he'd witnessed.

26:43 But to know that you could have been another victim of whoever

26:46 this was, he knew it was, well, magic.

26:49 Yeah. I'd.

26:49 I to me, it's more of the fact of like, you know, he could

26:51 have, he could have been killed too.

26:53 Like, I mean, this person would have, you know, I.

26:56 Just I agree. I I think he probably would have

26:58 been, yeah. I think he's so lucky he didn't

27:01 like just knock the door and realise there was someone there

27:03 or, you know, like if he just stepped in a bit further and in

27:05 panic and, you know, I don't know, stumbled towards the door

27:08 and realised why there's someone I.

27:09 Feel like, I feel like I would have done that.

27:11 I feel like if I saw. I don't know.

27:13 I mean, you never know what you're gonna do in a situation

27:15 like that, but I thought I, I thought it showed great

27:17 restraint on his part to. Leave it preserve the scene

27:20 yeah, whether. And that wasn't a thing back

27:22 then in a lot of ways. Like, yeah, But he.

27:23 He says that he says that like he did it because he just wanted

27:27 the police to see exactly what he saw.

27:29 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess part of his

27:32 brain too, would be like, you know, I didn't do this.

27:34 You don't want to be, you know, like, I mean, sure, I guess is

27:37 part of it too. Yeah.

27:38 He doesn't want to be pulled into this of like, you've done

27:40 this to her. Yeah.

27:42 Yeah. But I mean, if he'd gone in and

27:44 say, knelt down toward to her or something, this killer could

27:47 have come from behind him and he could have been the next victim.

27:49 Oh my God. So easily.

27:51 Oh, it's just. Crazy.

27:53 Yeah, yeah. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

27:56 There's another witness that sees a man who's around 5 foot

27:59 8, late 30s, early 40s, chubby with hairy arms running away in

28:07 a direction away from the bookstore.

28:09 Yeah. At Lutton.

28:10 Street, yeah, at around this time, yeah.

28:12 So apparently this man was balding.

28:15 The worker was a railway signal man.

28:18 And like, his statement remained the same.

28:23 He made multiple statements over many, many years, and he'd never

28:26 changed what he said. Yeah.

28:28 So, you know, that's another thing just to keep in mind.

28:31 On the same on that Hutton St., another witness was driving

28:34 along and saw a man run across the road in front of the car

28:38 because her husband was driving and she was in the passenger

28:40 seat. She saw him run across the road.

28:42 It was. And she saw a figure very

28:44 similar build to the other descriptions, covered in blood.

28:49 Yeah. Yeah, she said she was the one

28:51 who said his sleeves were rolled up and and his arms were covered

28:54 in blood. Yes.

28:55 Yeah. So at this stage, it's time to

29:00 pick the kids up from school. Yeah.

29:03 So Mark was collected from school by their local priest,

29:08 Father Bongiorno, who took him home.

29:11 The police were there. Media was everywhere.

29:14 His dad was still there being interviewed by the police.

29:16 Because I mean, I guess, I guess the first thing the police had

29:20 to do was rule out John as a suspect because I mean, he's the

29:24 ex-husband. He's found the body.

29:27 That's, you know, yeah, quite suspect, I suppose.

29:29 Potentially, yeah. But they were able to easily

29:33 corroborate his story. The.

29:35 Secretary's passing on the phone call, the fact that the phone

29:38 was still off the hook from that call, there was some.

29:40 Neighbour who said, you know, he came to try and ring Maria and

29:44 then make the triple O call like the the neighbour was quite

29:47 invested in what was going on so.

29:50 Yeah, His story was completely corroborated by everyone that

29:52 could corroborate it. You know, that was Yeah, there

29:54 so. He was.

29:55 He was actually ruled out. Yeah, pretty early on.

29:57 Yeah. What the police did next is

30:00 something that Ron now says, I don't know why we did this.

30:04 And I didn't realize at the time, given it was his first

30:07 homicide case, he's like, I didn't realize that this was

30:11 something that we shouldn't have been doing.

30:13 But they, the shop was set up as like the local command center

30:18 under which the police were conducting their, yeah, their

30:23 operation. I mean, again, it makes sense to

30:26 for people to come in like their eyewitness accounts.

30:29 They knew where to come to to come and give that statement

30:32 that they could gather all that information.

30:34 The police actually put a handwritten note on the front

30:37 door. Like it looks like they've just

30:39 cut a bit of cardboard out of something.

30:41 Like maybe like an old cereal box.

30:43 That's literally. Out of the kitchen like.

30:45 Yeah. And just written police

30:46 operations and stuck it to the door of the.

30:49 Yeah, stuck it to the door of the of the shop, Yeah.

30:54 And then they literally did it, conducted these, you know,

30:56 interviews with eyewitnesses and things in the kitchen of their

30:59 the home. People would walk past the

31:02 bedroom, which yes, obviously at that point the body had been

31:05 removed and things and the furniture had been sort of moved

31:08 and taken away for, you know, preserving those things.

31:11 But there was still the large blood.

31:13 Like Ron was saying they weren't cleaners back in that those days

31:17 because that's something we could do another episode on.

31:20 But yeah, the cleaners don't wouldn't come in those times.

31:22 So there was just still the blood stained carpet all in the

31:25 room. So people would come into the

31:27 house and pass that and sit in the kitchen and have these

31:30 interviews. But then they would, you know,

31:32 hey, would you have a cup of tea while you're doing this and use

31:34 all the the crockery and things and crockery?

31:37 And cutlery. There they'd make a sandwich and

31:39 they'd use the fridge and put their stuff in for the day

31:41 before they were there. And yeah, so everything was

31:43 being touched and handled and we had more people in the room and

31:48 in the house. I think it's worth noting that

31:50 when the police arrived on the kitchen table, there were two

31:53 coffee cups and the cake was there, you know, hadn't been

31:56 touched. So that's in and of itself,

32:00 that's interesting. But then however many hundreds

32:03 of people have potentially then gone through and used these cups

32:05 and used the cutlery and used all of that stuff.

32:08 Ron was saying they were working 12 to 14 hour days, seven days a

32:12 week for three months out of that site.

32:14 Yeah. So that you can just imagine how

32:17 many people were coming and going and how much contamination

32:19 of the crime. Scene although they he did say

32:21 that the the cups that were used, they were tested for

32:25 fingerprints. Nothing that was found on them

32:28 though. But they weren't they were at

32:30 least tested for that prior to maybe being put back into the

32:33 rotation. Yeah, yeah.

32:35 So they were at least prior to that, but not ideal at all.

32:39 I mean, yeah, we know that now, yes.

32:42 Yeah, Mark recalls meeting Ron for the first time at his house

32:47 that afternoon and recalls Ron's and pathetic nature.

32:54 And so, I mean, Ron just seems like, you know, such a salt of

32:57 the earth type of a guy as a 25 year old, young, inexperienced

33:01 detective. He still had that as he had the

33:03 whole, you know, personality, I guess.

33:08 And that made a massive impact on Mark at a time where, I

33:12 guess, you know, for a young boy to experience such tragedy in

33:18 his life, to have somebody, you know, a young pop who's sort of

33:22 taken you under their wing, I can see how Mark would have

33:25 derived comfort, comfort from that.

33:27 Totally. To know that someone's, you

33:29 know, this is awful, this awful things happened, but there's

33:31 someone who is, you know, approachable but you feel like

33:36 is gonna get the job done that needs to get done.

33:38 Like, you know, 'cause you wanna know who did this to your mum?

33:40 Yeah. Oh my goodness.

33:41 Absolutely. Yeah.

33:42 So Ron was saying their methodology was because.

33:46 So this isn't the time before computers and all of that sort

33:48 of stuff. So when they're investigating

33:51 something, they have an index book, Yes.

33:53 And it's fascinating. It's so fascinating.

33:55 So they would say they had a person of interest named Bill

33:59 Smith. They'd put it in the index book

34:01 under Bill, under Smith, under short, under bold, under

34:06 whatever descriptors there are for him.

34:08 Or if it's, for example, there's a red car, they'd file it under

34:10 red car number plate and like N for number plate and then the

34:16 actual what the number plate started with.

34:17 And so the way they were keeping these records, and apparently

34:21 this is how they did investigate a lot.

34:23 Yeah, I think now obviously it's all digitized, but it's the same

34:28 principle. They file everything in multiple

34:31 ways so that you can't miss it if you're looking for a car.

34:34 Someone else has mentioned a car.

34:36 Hang on a minute. Well, someone else saw a red

34:37 car, but this one's This is a blue car.

34:39 It's not the same car, but yeah, yeah.

34:41 Amazing how they do all that. And with it being handwritten at

34:45 that point in time, it would have been very time consuming.

34:47 Apparently that was one person's job was literally once all the

34:51 statements were taken was to go through their statement and do

34:54 that all that filing and indexing of information and that

34:57 would that was. Maximum time job.

34:58 Oh, it would be. Yeah, it absolutely would be.

35:01 Because they were getting many, many, many statements.

35:03 People were coming through with lots of information.

35:05 And look, some of it's relevant, you know, but you've got to pick

35:08 through this whole lot of stuff that's not relevant to.

35:10 Yeah. So I mean.

35:11 Everyone had to be helpful, but obviously not all of the

35:14 information is helpful. You've got to decide then what's

35:16 worth investigating further. And what's not.

35:19 And as the bystander, you don't know where your information is

35:21 helpful and you should always assume it could be and give the

35:23 information and put it to the gate.

35:25 Leave it to the experts to decide whether or not it is,

35:27 because you never know that little snippet that you thought

35:29 was absolutely irrelevant could be the case to figuring all this

35:34 out. Yeah.

35:36 Absolutely, yeah. So this was such a frenzied

35:39 attack. The police were like, well, it's

35:41 personal something, something personal has happened here.

35:46 Maria didn't have any defense wounds.

35:48 She was attacked from behind. So what they, what the police

35:51 think happened was that whoever she was sitting down and having

35:55 this coffee with and whoever she'd bought this cake for to

35:59 share morning tea, which we'll fight, we'll get to in a second,

36:05 she's run away from them and tried to go and lock herself in

36:09 her bedroom. Because that that was one room

36:10 that had a lock on. It it was the only room in the

36:12 house that had a lockable door. She hasn't quite been able to

36:17 get there without them also being able to get in.

36:20 And they've stabbed her from behind.

36:22 Yeah. So they think the fatal stab

36:24 wound was actually inflicted quite early on in this frenzied

36:28 attack. Yeah, but they have continued to

36:32 stab her, as you said, 68 times. We also know that the the weapon

36:37 that was used was actually a knife from her kitchen.

36:40 So like Ronnie Dolls has said that they know there's a strong

36:43 belief that there wasn't the person didn't arrive there with

36:45 intention to kill, that this person arrived at this house or

36:51 bookshop, whichever without that intent and has used weapon, a

36:54 weapon that was on hand for them.

36:56 So yeah, that's. Tonight, she also suffered a

37:01 significant blunt force trauma to the head.

37:03 So whether that sort of knocked her out and then they were able

37:08 to stab her, which caused her death, that's sort of not really

37:13 that timeline. It's not.

37:14 Really, no. And the hands being bound to

37:17 from the autopsy report could be.

37:19 It was noted that that happened quite possibly after death.

37:22 Yeah, I've got that noted as well.

37:24 Yeah. What would be the motivation

37:27 behind time hands they believe to?

37:29 Stabilize the body to move it. OK.

37:32 And then and then that was interrupted by John.

37:35 So there's a lot of in the coroner's report and that's the

37:37 and after the fact from what Ron has sort of brought to it as

37:40 well, a lot of talk about this being sort of bit ritualistic

37:43 style killing. And so they there is belief that

37:48 the hands being bound was part of that whole ritualistic aspect

37:52 of it. OK, Being done after the fact

37:55 because there was the way that it wasn't.

37:56 It was the way the bruising was and things like that from the

37:59 the tying up. It wasn't.

38:02 It was clearly done after the fact.

38:03 It didn't show. It wasn't something that was

38:05 done prior. Yeah.

38:07 So they believe that's part of the ritualistic process, but it

38:11 also could help with stabilizing a body that was going to be

38:13 moved. Oh wow.

38:15 Oh, poor Maria. Oh, just awful.

38:18 Nah. Should we get into suspects now,

38:22 do you reckon? Let's do that.

38:24 Let's jump down to that. Suspect #1 the real estate agent

38:28 she has seen talking to that morning, Yes, she, Maria, had

38:33 actually had an affair with this real estate agent.

38:35 Unbeknownst to her, I should. Say, well, unbeknownst to her,

38:38 he was married. Yeah, she didn't know that.

38:40 She didn't know. That she thought she was

38:42 genuinely dating a person that was on the market.

38:45 Yeah. And she broke it off with him

38:47 when she found out he was married.

38:49 Yes. And so again, so the police put

38:53 that the motive then would be that he, she broke up with him

38:56 and it's a bit of a blow to the ego and you know, that sort.

39:01 Of be a. That be a motive and could he

39:03 have done it? Yeah, he was Alibide 100%.

39:07 Like there was no shadow of a doubt.

39:09 He was actually doing an open house showing and multiple

39:12 people saw him. Yeah, over that whole time.

39:15 Period. So he was pretty very early on,

39:18 able to be ruled out for that reason, that he wasn't in the

39:21 vicinity at all. Yeah.

39:24 The man with the briefcase. Yep.

39:26 So Mario Falcucci was his name? Yep.

39:32 He wanted to sell Maria these comic books that he had.

39:36 So he lived around the corner from the bookshop, is that

39:38 right? And he wanted to sell her these

39:41 comic books that were quite sexually graphic in nature.

39:44 And well, for that time, I'm guessing too.

39:47 Like, yeah, she freaked out at them.

39:48 And I mean she. Was thank you she.

39:50 Was a devout Catholic as well, so maybe seeing it through that

39:53 lens potentially. No, she was like, Oh no, I'm

39:57 actually not gonna sell those. Although she did sell

40:00 pornography. Oh, did she?

40:02 Didn't she? Yes.

40:03 She had pornographic like magazines that she did sell.

40:07 They were found hidden under a counter.

40:09 So she obviously had a clientele who she would sell these for,

40:11 but this guy seemed to be weird. Yeah.

40:14 And maybe she just didn't want to engage in business with him.

40:17 And he got quite angry, apparently, when he couldn't

40:20 sell them to her. Yeah.

40:21 So there was. Yeah, he was an interesting

40:24 bloke. But I think the biggest thing

40:25 with him, because this guy, this guy was Ron's front runner.

40:28 Yep. So the biggest thing with him

40:31 was when they went to his house to have a look for, you know,

40:34 any evidence there, they did stumble across a receipt for a

40:37 dry cleaners which he had gone the following day to Maria's

40:41 death to have a pair of pants cleaned.

40:43 And there was a note on the receipt that they cleaned a

40:46 stain that looked like that would that resembled blood,

40:50 which I mean, also the other interesting thing is, yes, it's

40:53 not only like there was a dry cleaner on High Street.

40:56 He drove 20 minutes, 20 kilometers, 20 kilometers, Yeah,

40:59 2020 kilometers away to the dry cleaners to have that stain

41:03 removed. I mean, so sauce as hell.

41:06 So that's, that's why he became Ron's front runner.

41:09 Yeah, the other thing. The other thing they found when

41:12 they searched his house was twine that matched the twine

41:14 that was that bound Maria's out. Yeah.

41:17 Out of the backyard, adding this backyard very, very distinctly

41:20 like the twine that was used. Yeah.

41:22 So those number of things that have really.

41:23 Sort of added up. Added up for him.

41:25 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just absolutely crazy.

41:28 Yeah, there was, yeah, the note said Query Blood stain on top of

41:32 trouser. Yeah, from the from the dry

41:34 cleaner. Yes, that's right, the next one

41:38 on the list would probably be the Telstra.

41:40 Guy telecom worker. And the telecom?

41:41 Worker back in the day wasn't Telstra.

41:43 No, sorry. Oh yes, I remember those days.

41:48 Same. I still remember the logo, Yes.

41:52 Same. Yeah, he'd visited the bookshop

41:54 a few times, I think he was. A bit keen?

41:56 Quite. Keen on Maria and I don't think

42:00 she necessarily reciprocated that same keenness, but she was

42:04 very friendly and nice. And so he didn't feel like he

42:07 couldn't go back. Yeah.

42:09 So he'd, you know, he'd gone and, and, and tried it on a few

42:13 times, I think. Yes, he was interviewed by the

42:16 police and two days after he was interviewed he committed

42:22 suicide. Now that also looks very

42:25 suspicious. Yeah.

42:26 So, yeah. Was that completely unrelated or

42:29 was that, you know, a guilt? Thing.

42:30 What do you think? I honestly don't know because

42:34 the other the other stuff I think pulls me that way so.

42:37 Much. Oh 100%.

42:38 But then. Then this is.

42:40 Just like was he already in a in a space where this was something

42:46 he was contemplating? And well, yeah.

42:48 And just the whole like, you know, I loved her and she died.

42:51 And so that that's not now a prospect for me.

42:53 And it was it just that was that just all a bit of a culmination

42:56 of stuff for him that was going on because you don't know any of

42:59 that. I don't know.

43:00 I don't know. I don't want to make of it at

43:02 all. And DNA wasn't a thing then.

43:04 So they couldn't rule out, couldn't rule him out and

43:08 couldn't clear him like. And it wasn't like a standard

43:11 thing to take a DNA swab from a. Thing no.

43:15 From a suspect, which is what they would do these days, they

43:18 would get consent to, to take that sample, yes.

43:21 So we, I guess to this day he still remains a suspect.

43:26 He's on it. They've he's.

43:27 Formalist. Yeah, yeah, there was because

43:31 there was two real estate agents out the front as well,

43:34 obviously. And obviously ruling out the one

43:36 that was that she had a relationship with the other guy

43:39 they haven't been able to find. They've been trying to track him

43:42 down for a long time. So he's another one that sort of

43:45 is a little bit. I don't think he's got anything

43:47 to do with more the other real estate agent that happened to

43:50 both be standing there, you know, at the time.

43:51 But yeah, so But they still haven't actually been able to

43:54 find him. No.

43:56 No one's been able to find him. No.

43:59 OK, so I'm going to just. We're going to jump a little bit

44:02 now. Yeah.

44:03 We're actually going to jump to August 19.

44:08 Nope. Sorry.

44:13 Yes. August 1998.

44:16 Father Bongiorno. So in the parish that Maria and

44:23 the boys lived in, they attended church.

44:27 Maria was a quite a devout Catholic.

44:30 She was an, you know, she attended church the well Mark

44:34 attended the Catholic primary and then went on to attend the

44:37 Catholic High School as well. Yeah, this was around the time.

44:44 So we're fast forwarding a fair bit here.

44:45 We're fast forwarding 18 years. This was at a time when all of

44:49 those Catholic Church accusations were coming out

44:57 about priests having absolutely inappropriate sexual

45:02 relationships with young boys. One of Mark's mum's friends

45:12 found out that Father Bongiorno had been interviewed by the

45:16 police in relation to sex offences against children.

45:22 And she contacted Mark and said to him, did that ever happened

45:26 to you? And Mark said, oh, no, it that

45:29 never happened to me. Yeah.

45:31 And this friend said to him, well, what about Adam?

45:35 And he's. And Mark was like, oh, I don't

45:36 think so. Like he's never said anything.

45:38 Yeah, but I'll ask him. Yeah.

45:40 So a few days later, Mark was driving Adam somewhere.

45:44 They were in the car and Adam and sorry.

45:47 And Mark's asks Adam the question and fully expects him

45:50 to just say no, No, I don't know what you mean.

45:53 I don't know what you're talking about.

45:54 That never happened to me. But oh, he says yes.

46:02 And he tells the story about how Father Bongiorno, how he

46:11 molested him and how frequently it happened.

46:15 And look, if you want to hear details about all that, you can.

46:22 It's outlaid in the Trace podcast, which is absolutely

46:27 where you should go if you want to listen to anything or want to

46:30 know anything more about this case.

46:31 Rachel Brown did the most amazing job.

46:34 She is incredible. She's an incredible

46:37 investigative journalist. Well, I, I, it makes me so

46:43 emotional thinking about this because this poor boy who had

46:47 disabilities who felt like he couldn't say no, was subject.

46:55 What and what gets me with it is these priests or Poncho

47:00 literally said to him, you know that if you tell someone, then

47:04 you're not special anymore and God won't protect you.

47:08 So that this is happening because you're special.

47:12 But if you tell someone, then you're not special and God won't

47:16 protect you. That he's hiding such a

47:19 manipulation of someone's beliefs and faith that I mean

47:23 just find it revolting. It is revolting, he also told

47:27 so. I mean, Father Bongiorno was

47:31 found much later on to have perpetrated these just the most

47:37 horrific acts upon many, many young boys.

47:42 And he told a lot of them that he had very powerful friends and

47:48 they were God. Yeah.

47:49 And they would inflict harm upon their families if they told

47:56 anyone. So in light of this, Adam then

48:02 tells Mark that the day that Father Bongiorno molested him,

48:09 he told his mum. So at this point in time, at

48:13 that very moment in time, the only two people ever that Adam

48:18 ever disclosed this information to was his mum on the 16th of

48:23 June in 1980. The day before.

48:26 The day before she was found dead and to Mark in 1998.

48:33 So in light of this, Mark sort of goes into action mode.

48:37 I mean, hearing him discuss this on the Trace podcast, he's a 53

48:42 year old man or 50 in his. He's in his 50s anyway.

48:45 Now, yeah, now, yeah, he's in tears discussing this as you

48:50 would be. It's so.

48:51 That role, you know that your brother's experienced that, and

48:55 I can't even imagine. Mark is Adam's protector.

48:57 Yeah, well, I mean, we should say that.

48:59 I mean, when Maria, the day of before she took the kids to

49:03 school that day and the day and the weekend prior, she had said

49:06 to Mark, if anything was to ever happen to me, look after your

49:11 brother Adam, which he said that's not something that was

49:14 prior to that ever discussed. Oddly enough, that morning she

49:18 said that to him, which I think as a mom deep down, I think what

49:21 she was saying to him was we need to keep a closer eye on him

49:24 with these things that are going on.

49:25 I don't think she was predicting her own death necessarily, but

49:28 she was like, hey, we need to both be more aware of, you know,

49:32 people around Adam and be. Part of it, but as a 13 year old

49:37 he was like, yeah, yeah, whatever.

49:38 Whatever, mom. Get me with scrambled eggs.

49:40 Yeah. Just like in hindsight, he now

49:44 looks back at that and he's like, oh, she knew.

49:46 She knew something. This was the the stuff was going

49:49 on. I mean, I think to to Mark, that

49:51 was him, that was confirmation for him that Adam had disclosed

49:56 to her the day before. And that she was going to do

49:59 something about it, like this isn't something she was just

50:01 letting go, so. She told Adam that morning, so

50:04 Mark had gone off to school. She told Adam that morning that

50:07 she was going to call Father O'Keefe, who is Father

50:10 Bongiorno's boss at the local parish, and report what had

50:15 happened. And she actually said to Adam, I

50:18 will sort this out. So Adam's gone off to school

50:21 thinking nothing else of that, all right?

50:25 Yeah. He's come home from school and

50:28 his mum is dead, has been murdered.

50:33 Now, what kind of internalized guilt must he have felt?

50:39 This is the thing where his disabilities, I think, have been

50:42 over. You know, it's shadowed the

50:44 police officers, unfortunately, as to not interviewing him.

50:47 Yeah. And I wonder would he have

50:49 disclosed that to police officers, you know, if he had

50:52 been asked and I'd obviously not being asked, he didn't.

50:57 But if he would been directly asked, is there something that

50:59 you know that could link? This up, they never interviewed.

51:03 Him. They never interviewed him.

51:04 They. Because they.

51:05 Assumed he wouldn't have anything to.

51:06 That's right, Add and actually he may actually hold the key to

51:09 it all. Yeah.

51:10 And Ron says that was an. He cannot believe they did that.

51:14 Didn't do that, he said. It's another one of those things

51:17 as well as, you know, setting up shop, you know, setting up shop,

51:20 setting up the the police operations in the shop and in

51:24 the house being wrong. This is the other big flag of

51:28 his that he sees that, you know, you can't dismiss someone as not

51:31 having something relevant to add as as close to the victim as as

51:35 a son, especially whether they have any disability or anything

51:40 going on like that. They should be asked questions

51:42 and give an opportunity to give their.

51:45 Story. Absolutely.

51:47 So we're fast footing now. I think I said 2018 before it

51:51 was actually 2013 that this all came about.

51:56 Mark called Ron right away, and Ron took a statement from Adam

52:02 immediately. And what they discovered through

52:05 that process of taking the statement was that Adam had

52:09 actually been not only assaulted by Father Bongiorno, he'd also

52:13 been assaulted by Father O'Keefe.

52:16 And they think it happened three times in the preceding weeks to

52:20 Maria's death. Yeah.

52:23 Adam's account, which, you know, he absolutely remembers it.

52:27 Of course he does this with such a traumatic and like it, of

52:30 course he remembers it all. He was actually able to give a

52:33 really detailed account of what happened, when it happened and

52:37 how it happened because each time, unfortunately the events

52:42 were escalating the the perpetrate, what they were

52:45 perpetrating on him was escalating.

52:47 And so he was able to give very detailed accounts of that.

52:51 It's awful, can't even handle it.

52:55 I just can't. I just can't even believe it.

52:58 No. The fact that Father Bongiorno

53:01 was then the priest who was sent to the school to pick up Mark on

53:06 the day his mum died, blah, blah, blah.

53:10 All right, So now we've got, I mean, in everyone's mind now

53:14 we're, we're further down the path, but we've now got two more

53:18 suspects to add to the list. So we've got Father Bongiorno

53:22 and Father O'Keefe. On the day of the murder, a man

53:27 by the name an electrician by the name of Ellen Herko was

53:30 working on an electrical box at the presbytery.

53:35 Yeah, he saw a man who. So he didn't.

53:39 It's not like he worked for the church or anything like that.

53:41 He was just an electric, an electrician who needed to come

53:44 and fix something. On that day, he saw a man come

53:47 into the presbytery. He was about 8 meters away from

53:52 him, so not far. There was blood on the side of

53:55 his face and there was blood on his arms.

53:57 Yeah, and all of his hands. And on his hands.

54:00 And he was wearing a black shirt and black slacks.

54:04 Or did he describe him? No, I don't.

54:08 Oh no. I've written down that he was

54:10 wearing a black shirt and black slacks with his sleeves rolled

54:12 up. Mira.

54:14 He described him as a short, stocky man, and he said to him,

54:18 oh, what have you done to yourself?

54:19 And he said, I cut my faces, my face on the roses near the wire

54:23 fence. With that, this man this far,

54:26 this priest goes into the presbytery house and there's

54:32 yelling in Italian and the the electrician's like, I know what

54:36 Italian sounds like. It wasn't Greek, it was Italian

54:38 100%. What is I guess inferred by that

54:44 is that Father Bongiorno's gone in with blood all over him.

54:48 And the housekeeper who worked at the house, who is now thought

54:52 to be living back in Italy, interestingly enough, was

54:56 yelling at him and I'm guessing going what?

54:58 What have you done? What's happening?

55:00 Yeah. They've never been able to

55:03 interview her or finally no. Yeah.

55:05 I think they know she's in Italy though, but they haven't been

55:07 able to specifically locate her. Yeah, and whether she's even

55:14 still alive. Well, I.

55:15 Actually, I possibly know she could be dead.

55:17 Yeah, I actually don't know. Yeah, Ellen Herko now knows that

55:20 the man that he saw that day is Father Bongiorno.

55:23 Because as all of this was starting to come out, obviously

55:27 photos of the priest are coming out with her name.

55:29 And he's like, oh, that's that's the guy I saw that day.

55:31 That is the man I saw that day covered in blood.

55:33 Yeah. So he's then made a statement to

55:35 the police. And I don't know what you think

55:37 of this, but the other witnesses on the day who speak about

55:41 seeing, you know, the white T-shirt man and also the black

55:45 slacks, black T-shirt person, the images, there's two

55:48 different images of those people that have come out.

55:52 And I, I could believe that they were the same person described

55:56 by different people. I think there's some.

55:58 Similarities. I would.

55:59 I would agree. I could believe someone's

56:00 saying, no, they are different people too, because but

56:02 obviously different people's perspectives see different

56:04 things. But I could believe that they

56:06 could be the same person. But the particular one where

56:10 I've said it's like a full body like description that looks like

56:15 Father Bongiorno, Yeah. Yeah, yes, absolutely.

56:18 I'm not crazy. Oh, not at all.

56:19 Yeah. I'm not trying to put something

56:21 on that. I definitely look at that image

56:23 and go, well, I could see that that would be a description of

56:26 him. For sure stocky 5 foot I'd like

56:29 you brushed back sort of thinning.

56:31 Hair, thinning hair, you know, like your receding hairline and

56:35 yeah, the shape of the face. And everything.

56:36 Very rounded face. Yeah, agreed.

56:39 I think absolutely it could be him.

56:41 Yeah, the changing clothes. So the fact that someone's seen

56:46 a man in a white shirt and blue slacks.

56:49 That's why I was like the black black.

56:50 Could that be black robes like and then?

56:53 But somebody saw a man in black. But it was shadowy.

56:57 Shadowy. Yeah.

56:58 So that's why I'm like, is it? Did he have his robes on?

57:00 And he's taking the robes off and underneath was white

57:02 T-shirt. But that that's why I think when

57:05 Ellen Herko saw him at the presbytery, he was wearing a

57:09 black shirt. Yeah, right.

57:11 Not his robe. Yeah.

57:13 OK. So that kind of throws things a

57:15 little bit. But I do have a theory about it.

57:17 But I think this is everyone's theory.

57:18 So it's not like my my theory is necessarily unique.

57:21 No. So in 1998, Father Bongiorno was

57:28 convicted of child sex offences, but not of.

57:34 Adam. Not, not not of Adam, because at

57:36 this stage he hadn't made his statement yet, but he didn't

57:42 like, he just got shunned. Like as in they put him in a

57:44 different what? They did that with so many.

57:47 They put him in a school, didn't they?

57:48 Yeah, they did they. Put him out of school, which

57:51 blows my mind. But kept an eye on him.

57:54 But they, the school they sent him to prison, Oh my God.

57:58 The school they sent him to, though, is where the church was

58:01 sending all of these people that were that those sorts of things

58:05 were coming out about. So any, any information of like

58:08 this or that that priest might be doing this, they would move

58:11 him to this school. So all of a sudden you've got a

58:15 group of them working together in a in one place at a school of

58:22 all places. It just honestly the.

58:24 Catholics came out a lot. Together with all this, is it?

58:29 Oh, no, it's I, I think that we can't get into.

58:31 No, that's just, but I think it's worth noting at the, at

58:35 this time as well, like in the 80s, there was sort of like 2

58:38 factions of Victoria Police. There was the Catholics and when

58:46 there was like a Catholic head of Victoria Pol that was sort of

58:51 the the dominant, I don't know, faction of the police by query

58:59 whether at this time cover ups were made potentially because

59:06 these priests were put into the picture.

59:09 Yes, because we find out like there was DNA evidence that was

59:15 found later once DNA became a thing, there was DNA that was

59:19 found in this case, but it turns out that.

59:23 Well, the DNA was used at that point, so they've.

59:26 Yes, they did it. Yes, that.

59:27 Were related to this case once DNA came in and they eliminated

59:33 all of the suspects on the list except for the telecom worker

59:35 because they didn't have his DNA.

59:37 Yes, yeah, they. Ruled out the second real estate

59:40 agent they can't find. Yes, sorry.

59:42 You're absolutely right. Yeah, They ruled everyone else

59:46 out based on this DNA. Bongiorno.

59:48 They ruled out Bongiorno. O'Keefe everyone.

59:51 Yeah. But it turned out that DNA

59:55 profile came from a piece, an item that wasn't from the crime

1:00:01 scene. It had been mixed in and the

1:00:03 pieces from the crime scene of from Maria James's crime scene

1:00:07 had actually gone missing. Gone missing.

1:00:10 Gone missing. Seriously.

1:00:12 And apparently this was not the only case that that's happened

1:00:17 with. So Ronidal says the Victoria

1:00:20 Police don't have a great track record in evidence keeping prior

1:00:24 to a certain year. And this is absolutely the case

1:00:27 here. So what actually happened was

1:00:29 there was a pillow case from a case that happened I think days

1:00:34 after Maria's. Yeah, that.

1:00:36 So it was the next exhibit, say it was exhibit 275 and Maria's

1:00:41 was 274. The Yeah, the the pillow case

1:00:47 from case 275 was put in the bag and box with all of Maria's

1:00:54 exhibits. The DNA that was used to exclude

1:01:00 all of those suspects, including Fathers Bongiorno and O'Keefe,

1:01:05 was. From not related to.

1:01:08 That the exhibit from case 275. South, you're ruling out people

1:01:12 from actually murdering someone else, not Maria.

1:01:17 This bungle was not actually discovered until Rachel Brown in

1:01:22 2017 started this Trace podcast. And they discovered that not, as

1:01:29 you said, not only had they compared this DNA against

1:01:34 something completely unrelated to Maria's case, they had also

1:01:39 lost or misplaced the bed sheet. The bedspread that was covered

1:01:46 in blood. Yeah.

1:01:48 And the pillow, The actual, not the pillow case.

1:01:51 No, it was the pillow. An actual pillow.

1:01:53 Yeah. That was also saturated in

1:01:55 blood. Maria's blood.

1:01:57 Yes. And potentially the blood of.

1:01:59 Because they, they generally say that Ron was explaining, you

1:02:03 know, with the way that this, particularly with this frenzied

1:02:05 attack, obviously as they're stabbing, more often than not, a

1:02:10 hand will slip down the knife and they will cut themselves in

1:02:13 some way. So in, in a, in this kind of a

1:02:16 crime scene, it's more likely that you're going to find some

1:02:20 blood of the, of the perpetrator because they're going to nick

1:02:24 themselves or cut themselves at some point.

1:02:26 Yeah, with the that just repulses me.

1:02:29 But yeah, that that with how frenzied it is that that will

1:02:32 slip and cut themselves. So they ruled out all these

1:02:36 people that shouldn't have been ruled out based on DNA.

1:02:40 Yeah. So you basically sort of take it

1:02:41 back to square one because they did rule out like Mario, who,

1:02:46 you know, run, as I say, Ron's front runner was ruled out only

1:02:50 due to DNA in the end. So as much as in that, you know,

1:02:53 when it happened, didn't have DNA and he was definitely the

1:02:55 front runner, then they got to a point, I think in the 90s it

1:02:58 would have been, wasn't it? They finally got the DNA and

1:03:00 they tested Mario at that point and ruled him out on the DNA.

1:03:03 It turns out now he's back on the list, you know, So he's

1:03:06 another one along with Father Bongiorno now, because we've got

1:03:09 further information down the track about other motives.

1:03:13 Whereas Mario's motive, I guess isn't as as higher ranked in

1:03:17 terms of possibilities. But still, now they're all in

1:03:20 the mix again. God, just awful.

1:03:25 It's horrible for Mark and Adam. Awful.

1:03:28 Just the roller coaster of this whole thing.

1:03:31 These two men now men, you know, Mark and Adam, they are dogged

1:03:36 and unrelenting in trying to find out what happened for their

1:03:39 mom, to their mom and to get some justice for her because

1:03:45 that's all they've got. You know, it's such a horrific

1:03:50 or thing for them. Well, I mean, we can probably go

1:03:53 down the track now of like, what's what?

1:03:55 Then Rachel also discovered in her investigations, which really

1:04:00 bring, I think, Bongiorno and O'Keefe to the real forefront of

1:04:04 this being. Quite possibly what went on

1:04:07 somehow is that she discovered all these other victims of both

1:04:13 those priests who have come forward and have told their

1:04:17 stories. And they are horrific stories to

1:04:22 the point where, you know, obviously they don't have

1:04:25 physical evidence of these events taking place.

1:04:28 It is memories of what happened. And so her original reading of

1:04:33 one of these victims particularly, she really had to

1:04:36 go into it thinking, is this even, is this even true?

1:04:39 Like surely this that can't be true, you know, but getting into

1:04:44 it more and more and listening to psychologists who have sat

1:04:47 down with these people, Ron himself has interviewed this

1:04:51 this victim who believes every word he says.

1:04:54 They believe that there there is absolute fact here that there

1:04:58 was a real well pedophile ring that a cult of sorts.

1:05:02 He said that he was basically being brought into as a victim,

1:05:05 being sexually assaulted by these priests and brought into

1:05:09 this cult where he witnessed four people being murdered.

1:05:15 It just blows my mind. And when listening to Rachel and

1:05:20 Trace, which I highly recommend anyone listen to that and have

1:05:23 her tell this story more clearly and more thoroughly than we are

1:05:26 going to go into it. But hearing like how he

1:05:31 witnessed these things and that there were actual news articles

1:05:36 written about these things, but it was very just enough, just

1:05:40 enough covered like, you know what I mean?

1:05:42 It wasn't like it was a big story and people were like,

1:05:46 well, who is this and who did this?

1:05:48 They were very. Demanding justice, Yeah, Which I

1:05:51 mean, in this day and age. Surely, but it was just reported

1:05:56 on enough. It really was odd.

1:06:00 Agreed. That there was evidence that,

1:06:02 Yep, these events occurred. They marry up with this.

1:06:04 This is what he's saying, yeah, but not depth of it of like, you

1:06:08 know, we need to stop this and get this, you know, find out

1:06:11 what's going on these. People need to be in prison.

1:06:14 Yeah. Or at least sent to trial, yeah.

1:06:18 And the way he described times where how people were bound like

1:06:22 which connected to Maria and these ritualistic style killings

1:06:26 that were happening in with this cult situation.

1:06:29 And this Peter O'Keefe, the priest who was the head of the

1:06:33 church, he was forefront in all of that and sounded like quite

1:06:40 evil piece of shit. Oh my God.

1:06:43 Oh, as with Bongiorno. Oh totally.

1:06:47 But like if you wanted to rank him, like, yeah, I he was the he

1:06:51 was like sort of one of the the leaders of this.

1:06:53 And Poncho was definitely on the on for the ride, which just it's

1:06:57 repulsive. Absolutely repulsive and how

1:06:59 dare they hide behind being men of faith.

1:07:06 The last of like, I just don't understand.

1:07:09 I don't understand it. I really can't grapple any of

1:07:11 it. Like I just don't.

1:07:12 No, well, no. We, it, it is unfathomable.

1:07:15 It it's you can't, of course. Yeah, you can't.

1:07:21 You can't make sense of it because it it doesn't make

1:07:23 sense. Like you can't even imagine.

1:07:25 No, one of the suspects that we also haven't spoken about which

1:07:29 I just sort of which we're just. Going to say the same.

1:07:31 Thing Peter Keogh. Yeah, yeah.

1:07:33 Which I mean, we could do a whole episode on.

1:07:36 We absolutely could. So Peter Keogh murdered his

1:07:41 girlfriend or wife? Girlfriend.

1:07:43 Girlfriend. She was a kinder in a teacher.

1:07:48 Yep. And he was.

1:07:52 He's a very, very bad man. Very bad.

1:07:55 I ranked the Supreme Court judge as bad too, though in some ways.

1:07:59 Go on. So Keira was convicted of the

1:08:04 murder of of Clear Clear Cleary was her name.

1:08:07 I can't remember her first name. I apologise for that.

1:08:10 So he was sentenced by the judge, right.

1:08:16 And the reason that was given by the defense as to why this

1:08:22 occurred was that she'd broken up with him.

1:08:25 Oh, OK. So he used a a term that is no

1:08:31 longer allowed to be used in our court system using the

1:08:35 provocation defence and the provocation was that she had

1:08:39 broken up. No way.

1:08:43 The jury had found that he was not a master of his mind at the

1:08:46 time due to this, right. So then the judge felt that the

1:08:53 judge's words was that Peter O'Keefe felt let down and angry,

1:09:00 so he sent Peter Keo. Peter Keo, sorry, my God.

1:09:04 And so the judge sentenced him to a maximum of eight years in

1:09:08 prison, and he served three years and 11 months of that and

1:09:12 then was freed out into the community.

1:09:14 I did not know that. That is disgusting.

1:09:16 Isn't that revolting? That is so bad.

1:09:18 And the The thing is like, this is the one that he was convicted

1:09:21 of. Yeah, as we say we could do.

1:09:22 We'll do a whole episode on him 'cause there's.

1:09:25 So many things, so much that he did realise that though.

1:09:29 So one of so Peter Kayo had a friend and his friend's

1:09:35 girlfriend at the time. She has since come out and

1:09:39 spoken about, and you can listen to her on the Trace podcast.

1:09:42 Yeah, she's since come out and said that Peter and Maria were

1:09:46 having had a brief dalliance. Yeah.

1:09:49 And so they were sort of seeing each other and keeping in mind

1:09:54 what he's done to his girlfriend, girlfriend,

1:09:57 girlfriend. And he was overheard by this

1:10:00 lady saying to someone, I will do to you what I did to the

1:10:04 woman in the bookshop. Yeah.

1:10:06 So. OK, take that as as it is.

1:10:12 At the time of Maria's death, this lady was driving with Peter

1:10:16 Keogh and her boyfriend in the car.

1:10:18 They were getting close to Maria's bookshop and he's like,

1:10:21 no stop, I've got to get out of the car.

1:10:23 Things are getting too hot. I can't be around here anymore

1:10:26 and would not even go near High St.

1:10:29 Thornbury. Right, because there's no

1:10:32 evidence that they ever even met and came in contact with each

1:10:35 other. But this, this lady has nothing

1:10:37 to no, nothing to gain gain by saying this.

1:10:40 And she feels like now because he's deceased.

1:10:43 Yeah. Oh, no.

1:10:46 She feels like she can speak out.

1:10:47 But at the time she's because they asked her.

1:10:49 Why didn't you come forward at the time when you heard him

1:10:52 saying I'll do to you what I did to the woman in the bookshop?

1:10:54 Yeah. And also this experience of him

1:10:56 not not wanting to go anywhere near the shop.

1:10:59 Yeah. And she said I was definitely

1:11:02 afraid I, I would have lost my life, Yeah, had I come forward.

1:11:06 I, I couldn't, I couldn't say anything.

1:11:09 Yeah, completely get that. Completely, totally.

1:11:12 Yeah, yeah, I know. So yeah, he there is that claim

1:11:16 there. But yeah, they can't they've

1:11:17 never been able to marry up any like this.

1:11:20 As you know, so many things point to this person that was

1:11:23 there being someone she knew, someone that, you know, was,

1:11:28 yeah, known to her. It wasn't just someone who just

1:11:30 walked in the door of the bookshop, you know, kind of

1:11:32 thing. And they can't marry up at any

1:11:35 point where they knew each other had met.

1:11:37 So. But maybe we just don't know.

1:11:40 But in 1982, there was a coronial inquest that that found

1:11:47 that she was murdered by a person unknown.

1:11:50 Yeah, because of the Trace podcast and that there's so many

1:11:55 other pieces that I mean, we could probably took for another

1:11:58 hour on all of the other evidence that was uncovered by

1:12:02 Rachel Brands and the Trace team's investigation into this.

1:12:06 There's that they found hair fibers, They found a book with

1:12:09 blood on it. They found lots and lots of

1:12:11 different items which within, along with Adam's statement,

1:12:17 were taken to the coroner and a coronial inquest was granted for

1:12:23 them and the finding was handed down in 2024.

1:12:26 Yeah, it took them a long time to.

1:12:28 Come to a long time to come together.

1:12:30 Yeah, I think they announced the coronial inquest was it in 2020

1:12:33 and then their finding was yeah, or 2020, 2121.

1:12:36 And the finding was was handed down in 2020, in June of 2024.

1:12:42 So not that long ago, Yeah. But unfortunately the coroner

1:12:46 still found that Maria was murdered by a person unknown.

1:12:52 So that doesn't mean unknown to her.

1:12:54 No, it just means unknown to. The community, you know, a lot

1:12:58 of other times they'll come down with it from their perspective,

1:13:01 they believe. Balance is probability because

1:13:03 that's the thing with a coronial inquest, they don't have to

1:13:05 prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

1:13:08 They can. They can suggest that on the

1:13:11 balance of probability, this is what happened.

1:13:14 And that should be investigated further.

1:13:15 Yeah. So with an open finding like

1:13:17 this, though, what the coroner has implored Victoria Police to

1:13:22 do is to continue investigating this and has told them they need

1:13:26 to have the hair fibers that have been found analyzed.

1:13:30 They need to look at the blood. They need to further investigate

1:13:36 Fathers Bongiorno and O'Keefe, who are both deceased.

1:13:39 Both dead and would they then potentially exhume those bodies?

1:13:43 Well, this is something that I guess would have to come, but I

1:13:46 mean, Ron says the exhumation of a body is like the hardest thing

1:13:52 to get permission to do, which is completely understandable.

1:13:55 I don't. Reckon those two deserve any

1:13:57 respect they. Don't.

1:13:58 They don't, given everything else.

1:13:59 No, I think they just, I mean it costs money, I get that.

1:14:02 But I have, I don't think there should be any weight given to,

1:14:05 you know, respecting the family or whatever of these two pieces

1:14:08 of shit because there's enough evidence to say that they are

1:14:11 pieces of shit. Yeah, I know there are.

1:14:13 Father O'Keefe had a twin brother and they do have DNA

1:14:17 from to though. Yes, but they do have his DNA.

1:14:19 So I guess if they could get a match with familiar DNA, yeah,

1:14:23 then yes, then that would be helpful to then go right.

1:14:26 We will exhume the body to confirm this entirely.

1:14:28 Yeah. But yeah, that's.

1:14:30 Whereas they don't have a DNA sample from father Bond Job.

1:14:34 No. And it must be female linked

1:14:37 because it's mitochondrial DNA that they they they grasp.

1:14:41 Yeah. So if you couldn't go down the

1:14:44 path of, say, if the twin brother had a child, yeah, that

1:14:48 won't actually give you the right DNA.

1:14:50 Well, it comes from the mother's side of the family.

1:14:52 Yeah. So we had a sister and they had.

1:14:55 Children, that would be. Then that would be right exactly

1:14:57 OK. So look, it's it's a really

1:14:59 complicated and complex thing. I just have also made a note

1:15:04 here just showing how much of a piece of shit father Akif was.

1:15:07 He was actually also accused of necrophilia.

1:15:13 And like, that just goes to show how perverted and weird and just

1:15:19 totally fucked up this whole thing was.

1:15:21 Just I what blows my mind is that there were people that have

1:15:26 come forward about this stuff and this church just moved them.

1:15:30 They don't prosecute them. It would be very different

1:15:33 today. Oh, bloody hope.

1:15:35 Oh, it would be. It absolutely would be.

1:15:36 It's. Still though, I mean, it's

1:15:38 institutionalized abuse, you know, and this is the thing,

1:15:42 they still, they get away with this stuff by using this the

1:15:46 faith, you know, and they hold that over people that and people

1:15:48 don't feel safe coming forward. Back in the day, I remember my

1:15:52 grandma, so my family a Catholic and I remember my grandma, you

1:15:58 know, to her, her priest and look, my my uncle is actually a

1:16:04 Catholic brother and is literally the nicest person to

1:16:09 walk this earth. Like he's an incredible man.

1:16:14 But I know my grandmother had so much.

1:16:17 I, I, it always, it was something that even as a kid, I,

1:16:22 I don't know, I found interesting.

1:16:24 Like, it definitely piqued my interest that the priest was

1:16:27 like the knower of everything. And I think in those days, that

1:16:36 is what priests were to a lot of people.

1:16:38 They were the pillars of the community.

1:16:40 You believed what they said, you did what they said.

1:16:42 Similarly, like doctors, you know, my grandparents would go

1:16:45 to the doctor and not question anything they said.

1:16:48 They would do everything that a doctor said.

1:16:50 Whereas these days we think about things more critically and

1:16:53 we can go and. Google things.

1:16:55 Well, that's. True too.

1:16:56 But we can go to the doctor and say, oh, actually, no, I think

1:16:59 this like these are my symptoms and this is what's going on.

1:17:01 And that doesn't seem quite right to me.

1:17:03 Or yes, whatever you can challenge.

1:17:05 Think people in authority like that, or people.

1:17:08 But back in the day, you never did that.

1:17:09 You didn't question them. You didn't.

1:17:11 Question a priest. There didn't question a doctor,

1:17:13 young boys who came forward to their parents or, you know, to a

1:17:16 sibling or someone or a, you know, close friend and said that

1:17:20 these things happened to them and they weren't believed.

1:17:22 Yeah, because they wouldn't believe that the priest could do

1:17:25 those things. I hope that now people are

1:17:28 knowing that they can come forward and will be believed,

1:17:31 You know, that there's been enough those people who first

1:17:33 have done this all credit to be those people who've pushed

1:17:36 through to, you know, be vocal about this because it would be

1:17:41 have been so hard to breakthrough that.

1:17:44 And all credit to Adam, you know, for coming forward and

1:17:47 disclosing this because it really changed the course of

1:17:52 action in terms of investigating this case and hopefully at some

1:17:58 point. I mean, I'm fingers crossed that

1:18:00 this is another Easy Street. Yeah.

1:18:02 Because as we both know that we recorded Easy Street and there

1:18:06 and we're like, Yep, that's in the bag.

1:18:07 And you know that we'll never find an answer to that one, you

1:18:10 know, And then I think we recorded that and then about 3

1:18:12 weeks later, there was the massive breakthrough.

1:18:15 Yeah, look. In this, I feel like there's a

1:18:17 lot of potential because as DNA techniques get more and more

1:18:21 sensitive, I think the profiles that they've been able to obtain

1:18:24 from certain things will potentially will be able to get

1:18:27 more specific and find more, yeah, more matches that will

1:18:30 then link. Yeah, the people who are

1:18:32 actually to blame. In this case, and it looks I the

1:18:38 gut instinct is we're gonna potentially find out this person

1:18:41 is dead who's done this. Yeah, but I think it's

1:18:43 particularly for Adam and Mark that that closure that, you

1:18:48 know, knowledge of having someone accountable in the sense

1:18:52 of just knowing that they've been named publicly, that they

1:18:54 did this to their mum, I think will be so much so cathartic for

1:19:00 them to be able to be settled. I think they need that and I

1:19:04 think they deserve it. Well, they want 100% deserve.

1:19:07 It yeah, let's hope so. I'm, I'm really hopeful that

1:19:10 we'll be having an update for this and we'll get them.

1:19:13 Yeah, I hope so too. Look, as we've said throughout

1:19:17 this whole episode, if you want to know anything more, yeah,

1:19:22 listen to the Long Form Trace podcast.

1:19:24 It is incredible journalism. It's an easy listen, to be

1:19:28 honest too. It's I mean, they're only like

1:19:29 30 minute episodes that she did. But I like she's she's so good

1:19:34 and she's every episode is very is very much, you know, like new

1:19:38 information. And it's all packed with

1:19:39 information. There's no filler there like it

1:19:41 is all very like. Yep.

1:19:44 Oh yeah, it's. Very good.

1:19:45 She's all over it. And she's.

1:19:47 Yeah, the way she presents it, she presents it with so much

1:19:49 empathy. Oh yeah, and professionalism.

1:19:53 And you can just tell she's so invested in the outcome of this

1:19:57 as through. This day many people and Ron, I

1:20:00 mean, I loved hearing like Mark say that to this day, Mark

1:20:03 Ronnie rules is in contact with him.

1:20:05 You know they he will just he's a retired he has no, you know,

1:20:09 money in this, you know, like whatsoever he but he will still

1:20:12 contact Mark and check in on. With him and Adam and just even

1:20:15 even just a how you going, like, let alone a, you know, we've got

1:20:19 some information sort of helping out and stuff.

1:20:21 So he, I mean, during her podcast, Trace, the Trace

1:20:25 podcast, Ron, it all's retired. Yes.

1:20:28 And even to the there's one episode where she says he was

1:20:30 three days from retirement and he should have been planning

1:20:33 that and doing the various things that he was on the phone

1:20:36 to her because this case is the one he wants solved, you know,

1:20:39 even yet to this day. Yeah, yeah.

1:20:42 Let's hope in the future. Look, I really feel like you

1:20:46 know this case can be solved. I think so.

1:20:48 It's, it's potentially going to take time and, and some further

1:20:53 development in terms of new DNA extraction techniques and that

1:20:57 kind of thing, but I think it's absolutely solvable.

1:21:01 I suspect that both Fathers O'Keefe and Bongiorno were

1:21:06 somehow caught up in this. Do you have a theory on how that

1:21:10 day took place? You know when with the

1:21:12 sightings. The only thing that gets me,

1:21:14 yeah. So I always thought Father

1:21:15 Bongiorno for sure. Solo I I wonder the thing.

1:21:21 So the thing that makes me think that Father O'Keefe was also

1:21:24 involved is the sighting of the man in the white shirt and blue

1:21:28 slacks. I think that was him.

1:21:29 I think that was him, yeah. But then there were only two

1:21:33 cups at Maria's, so did only Father Bongiorno come?

1:21:39 And then Father O'Keefe was like in hiding somewhere.

1:21:42 Like, did they know they were going to be doing this?

1:21:45 The fact that both of the priests had molested Adam at

1:21:50 this point, they were both, they were both in on it.

1:21:55 They both had something to hide. I think it's not unreasonable to

1:22:03 to assume that both of them went there, maybe not with the intent

1:22:07 to murder her. Although now knowing what we do

1:22:10 know about them, maybe they had intended to murder her.

1:22:14 I don't know the thing. And it happened so quickly too,

1:22:20 because it was from the time when Maria phoned John.

1:22:27 I don't think they were there then.

1:22:29 No, not her. I think her original phone call

1:22:31 to John, I think was to say to him, I've got the priest coming

1:22:36 over. I'm going to talk to them about

1:22:37 this. This, this is what's happened to

1:22:39 Adam. I think they had the sort of

1:22:40 relationship that she would have been informing the child's

1:22:43 father of what was going on. And so I think that's.

1:22:47 Why she rang in minutes later. Yeah.

1:22:50 She's. Dead.

1:22:51 And because I kind of like it's 1 of this little piece of the

1:22:53 puzzle that I'm like, if only she had said to him on that

1:22:57 phone call, hold on, sorry Father Bongiorno's here.

1:23:00 I'm just like it literally. Or whoever's name it was.

1:23:03 Or if she had just said so and so's here.

1:23:06 It would have been a totally. Different phone down and walked

1:23:10 away from that phone yes it probably wouldn't have stopped

1:23:13 what you know unfortunately her murder, but at least we could

1:23:16 have named it was in that place at that.

1:23:18 Time, as we said back when we were first starting this Yeah,

1:23:21 the Fathers were never suspects back then.

1:23:25 Nope. It was like, as Ron said, it

1:23:26 wasn't even a thought to assume clergy members would.

1:23:30 Not clergy members in the 80s, no.

1:23:32 Would be involved in something like that.

1:23:35 So they got away with it for such a long time.

1:23:38 Well, they both died before. Before they, before anyone knows

1:23:42 anything. Yeah, crazy.

1:23:45 What do you think happened? I think it's them.

1:23:47 Do you think? Both of them.

1:23:48 I think. It's hard, isn't it?

1:23:52 I know because I think definitely Bongiorno, I think he

1:23:55 fits the descriptions of who was seen.

1:23:57 But then the black shirt thing gets me.

1:23:59 And that's where I was like, well, maybe he was wearing,

1:24:01 maybe it was his robes on and off, you know, like, yeah, in

1:24:04 terms of maybe he was wearing them, he took them off because

1:24:06 he was running us from a scene and maybe put them back on again

1:24:10 when he arrived at the church, you know?

1:24:11 And that's OK that I could kind of see marrying those two things

1:24:16 up, the black and then the white.

1:24:18 Tops, yeah. But yeah, that's but then if

1:24:21 it's definitely a shirt, not not robes, that changes that so.

1:24:26 And if you look at the physical descriptions of the people who

1:24:32 were seen running from the scene, they're different enough.

1:24:37 And Father, Father O'Keefe was physically different, Yes to

1:24:44 Father Bongiorno, yes. But then the chat, the yelling

1:24:48 in Italian in the presbytery, that would have been to Father

1:24:56 Bongiorno. Yeah.

1:25:01 Hmm. Yeah, I don't.

1:25:02 Know and look, maybe, maybe they both arrived originally, but one

1:25:06 left and one stayed, you know, and so maybe only one was there

1:25:10 when Mr. James arrived. Maybe the other one had already

1:25:15 left. And that's why there's sightings

1:25:17 of different people in a short period of time.

1:25:20 Yeah, because I mean the timeline, you know, people, you

1:25:23 know, you'd say I was I was driving down such and such St.

1:25:25 Oh, it must have been, you know, 12:30.

1:25:27 It could have been 12:15 or you know, like 12. 35 like 5 minutes

1:25:31 would make. Exactly.

1:25:31 It would make a difference in terms of that, but it might mean

1:25:34 that, you know, say O'Keefe has left first and he's seen running

1:25:39 around, running away from the scene because he knows, you

1:25:43 know, a stab has already taken place kind of thing.

1:25:45 And he's like, I'm out of here. But thank goodness you can.

1:25:48 I'll leave you to take care of that, will I or?

1:25:50 Maybe he went to go and do something in terms of moving the

1:25:53 body or? Something exactly.

1:25:54 Get something to move the body. I don't know.

1:25:56 And so then and in that in between of that, that's when

1:25:59 John James has rocked up at the door.

1:26:01 Yeah. And so then there's only one

1:26:04 person left in and that person's also then seen exiting the

1:26:06 scene. You know, I think there's

1:26:08 there's definitely room for movement in both being there.

1:26:11 Yeah, I agree. But whether or not.

1:26:13 I mean, because I always thought, you know, in my mind

1:26:16 originally when I was thinking, yes, the priests are involved, I

1:26:19 thought they'd get someone else entirely to actually do the

1:26:22 murder. But it turns out that no, with

1:26:25 when you hear then the evidence of that James was his name was

1:26:28 one of the victims, that his story of being involved in this

1:26:31 cult situation and these ritualistic killings.

1:26:34 Nope. They're capable of doing it.

1:26:36 Yeah. So, yeah.

1:26:39 And that's been so clearly being able to be linked up that that

1:26:43 was OK if involved in those situations that I think that we

1:26:47 cannot rule out that that was very much a possibility.

1:26:51 Yeah. Look, I mean, this is our

1:26:53 opinion and our speculation and we don't, we don't know.

1:26:56 But look, I think that's my front runner, Yeah.

1:27:00 Yeah, yeah, definitely my front runner.

1:27:02 I know we haven't, we still haven't ruled out then you know,

1:27:04 the Mario and and the telecom guy and things like that.

1:27:08 But to me the the motive of the priests overrules any motives of

1:27:13 someone else. Agreed.

1:27:15 Yeah, yeah, they had a lot to hide.

1:27:17 Yeah, a lot to hide. Yeah, they deserve to rot in

1:27:20 hell. They sure as shit.

1:27:22 I really hope that they're enjoying living down there.

1:27:25 Yeah, because that's where they belong.

1:27:27 That's it. All right.

1:27:28 Well, I think that brings us to the end of the episode.

1:27:31 As we said, so much more to to cover.

1:27:33 Oh yeah, Trace podcast. Go for it.

1:27:36 There's not a lot else out there.

1:27:38 Otherwise you can read the coronial report, which is it's a

1:27:42 read. It's a read.

1:27:43 It's like 85 or 88 pages, something like that.

1:27:46 Yeah, it's there's a lot of detail in that as well and it

1:27:48 shows where it it's very, very clear what the coroner wants

1:27:54 Victoria Police to investigate. So yeah, let's hope.

1:27:57 That's what's going on. That's going to.

1:27:58 Happen in the background happening right now and and I

1:28:01 know resourcing is difficult. The cold case squad, you know,

1:28:05 they that all of our resources are limited.

1:28:07 But at some point, this will come back around and hopefully

1:28:11 technology, as technology progresses, we'll get some

1:28:13 answers for Maria's family and for Maria.

1:28:16 That's it. She deserves that.

1:28:18 She deserves that. Absolutely.

1:28:21 All right. Next week, what are we doing?

1:28:23 The Manson Family. I just don't even know where

1:28:26 we're gonna how how we're gonna do this one.

1:28:29 This will be, Yeah. I think I have to get my head in

1:28:31 it and, yes, work it out from there.

1:28:34 Yeah. I think feel like this is one

1:28:35 way we could bring some different stuff.

1:28:37 Agreed. Yeah.

1:28:38 We'll see where we come to. Yeah, we've mentioned the Manson

1:28:41 Family in one of our previous podcasts.

1:28:43 What was it? And Hamilton Bird.

1:28:44 That's right, the. Family.

1:28:46 Yes, Yes, this will be MKULTRA. That's it.

1:28:50 Yeah, right. This will be an interesting one.

1:28:53 A nice week of research for us ahead.

1:28:56 Yes, yes. So much Thank you so much for

1:29:00 joining us again and we look forward to seeing your, you

1:29:03 know, having you all join us next week.

1:29:06 Don't forget you can buy us a coffee at buy me a coffee

1:29:08 forward slash 2 crime besties and please follow us on our

1:29:12 socials. We've had so many people join us

1:29:15 on Instagram. Please keep that coming.

1:29:17 All of the comments TikTok, did we do our shout out?

1:29:21 We did, Did we? Oh, I don't think we did.

1:29:24 We had a shout out today, I thought.

1:29:26 We talked about it so much before the show that I'm like,

1:29:28 did we? Was that then or was that?

1:29:29 We didn't do our shout out so we have had the most glorious

1:29:34 comment from a listener. Her name is Sarah Cole.

1:29:37 Thank you so much Sarah. You made our day.

1:29:40 The other day when your message came through, Meg and I were

1:29:43 both at work and Meg sent me a message saying check out this

1:29:46 Instagram. That message that we just

1:29:48 received, it gave us the biggest boost and we really appreciate

1:29:51 it when people contact us, so please keep it coming.

1:29:55 And I guess on that, we probably should touch base on where we're

1:29:57 at with housewives maybe next week.

1:30:00 Oh, yeah, good point. Actually, there is some juicy

1:30:02 stuff going down because Real Housewives, we are up to reunion

1:30:07 for Salt Lake City. And it is.

1:30:09 Oh my God, that's so good. Oh, man, I just love it.

1:30:13 It's the best. All right, we'll talk about that

1:30:15 next week. Just for you, Sarah.

1:30:20 Well, all right. Well, they weren't.

1:30:21 Stay curious. Crime besties.

1:30:23 Bye. See ya.